HISTORIC LOSSES

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19174, 3 December 1927, Page 13

HISTORIC LOSSES

OLD FOLKS 5 LORE.

OUR PILGRIM FATHERS. AS GOOD AS AMERICA'S. In an advocacy of the compilation and preservation of material for local histories, Dr. Sadlier, Bishop of Nelson, observes that no great history of New Zealand can ever be written until there is a better knowledge than exists to-day of "the facts regarding the different little, communities who made np the people" in the earlier days (says a writer in the Wellington "Evening Post"). The Bishop mentioned that among tho "sources of history" are "old people, old newspaper flies, and, lastly, old diaries." In so far as it affects tho old people, someone may possibly reply that the movement has come thirty years too late. So far as regards some of the brightest brains among tho old-timers, it is admittedly too late, by thirty or even fifty years. But in another sense it is never too late. Not until one makes an industrious search, even an eleventh hour sarch, does ho realise what a wealth 01 facts still remains to be gathered. The task may have been too big, thirty or fifty years ago, for private enterprise to havo carried out ou commercial lines. But it was not too big for th-. Government to havo carried out. Tho labours of ono conscientious journalist or writer-compiler, if applied during tho last thirty years at, say, £SOO a year salary with moderato travelling expenses, would havo secured the salvage of an immense quantity of personal knowledge now removed irrevocably by the hand of death. The same writer-compiler would havo got the strength of —and perhaps would have partly indexed —various old nowspapor files, so that their frequently rediscovered and relost treasures would never again be left to rot betweon decaying bindings or scattered around as yellowed single sheets. Unpaid Service. If the thing could not—and perhaps still cannot—be done on commercial lines, by newspapers or by publißhors, then the onus still rests either upon tho Government or upon unpaid service. Admittedly, unpaid or partly-paid service Ims done a lot. Societies devoted to early settlement and tho bringing together of old settlers desorvo every credit for what they havo done both socially and historically. But his Lordship's remarks imply that all that has been done in the way of permanent record is but a drop in the bucket. Therefore unpaid service haß not filled the breach, nor has any Government yet seen its way to rise adequately to the occasion. In its duty to the past, the present, and the future, a newspapor stands in a peculiar position. Every daily newspaper is a commercial and competitive undertaking. Its space- represents money, and there is a limit to which it can open its pages to the matters of 50-80 years ago. But even when it does so, the matter is still not assured of permanence. A case has lately occurred in which a record of events in the 'fifties, published in the 'eighties, was rediscovered and reprinted in tho lato 'twenties of the following century, but there~is apparently nothing to provont the wholo story (and thousands of others) from being lost again, unless and until newspapers are indexed either by themselves or by some other coinpotent authority. That is what is meant by the rediscovery and reloss process mentioned above. Some rare oldjtime recollections wore recently recovered, through tho accident that a printinghouse fire had marvellously spared a particular volume among tho files. It was, in fact, deeply charred all round the edges and its smell still proclaimed the conflagration it had narrowly escaped. All over New Zealand country newspaper files are being burned or aro falling to pieces, and valuable records that were collected and printed by men who, though excellent journalists, had no leisure for indexing, are disappearing finally. Some papers make a habit of quoting little bits from their old files, and it may bo a goon" habit, but the little bits got lost again in the flic-room — that is, if they bother to keop a fileroom.

Any observant man must see, as Bishop Sndlier bccs, this recurring leakago and this cumulative loss, and must often have regretted it. Ho sees the witness and the evidence alike disappearing. Some wise descendant uses his grandfather's diary to boil the kettle, and then goes to the movies to see how an American firm films the Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers. Our own Pilgrim Fathers do not matter a Btraw.

Apparently Bishop Sadlier in his address to the Nelson Rotary Club omitted to mention the "Old Marlborough" of Mr T. Lindsay Buick. who also wrote "Old Manawatu." As a writer of books on the sort of material the Bishop speaks of, Mr Buick seems to stand alone in New Zealand, and probably his financial reward has not been sufficient to constrain him to extend his enthusiasm into other fields bsdly needing such an enthusiast. For it is mainly a labour of love. So far as New Zealand provincial lore is concerned, effort in the book field is not necessarily a financial loss, but it is not much of a commercial lure, and in the •meanwhile the material is vanishing. If the fact-finding and the fact-record-ing machinery were in proper order, tho evidence coufd at least be stored until such time as a bigger population and higher reading taste might make the author's task remunerative. But. if the policy of drift continues, when the time does arrive for a higher use of the raw material of the early times, more than nine-tenths of it will have vanished to the fire or the dustheap.